Indecision
by VesperRegina
Summary: Dreams don't lie, or so she's heard. Betty and Henry pairing.


Title: Indecision  
Author: Vesper (Regina)  
Rated: T  
Category: Romance  
Keywords: Betty/Henry  
Spoilers: Is it a spoiler if you wrote it before you saw it? If so, "Fake Plastic Snow."  
Summary: Dreams don't lie, or so she's heard.  
Disclaimer: _Ugly Betty_ is the property of Silent H Productions, Reveille and Ventanarosa, and Touchstone Television. The story is mine.  
Website: If you wish to archive, please link to my website, or my Livejournal post. Please keep all my headers intact.  
Notes: Thanks to Lylsister for being a wonderful beta. Set in the period between the flashback events in "Swag" and before "Fake Plastic Snow." I wrote this after having seen only "Fey's Sleigh Ride" and "Swag." I caught up to the rest afterward.

o-o

Betty has three eligible men in her life: Daniel, Henry, and Walter. Well, there is Marc, but she's already discounted him. She's not his type.

She only dreams about one of them.

These dreams leave her faintly blushing in his presence, make her almost incapable of meeting his gaze. If he's noticed he hasn't shown it and she certainly doesn't want to own to it.

Dreams are dreams, she tells herself and she isn't responsible for what her subconscious thinks she should have. And if she wasn't dreaming them while awake, she'd believe that just a little bit more.

Henry's a nice guy, she tells herself. If he ever kissed her she knows exactly how it would happen--he would ask her permission first and if she gave it, he would dip his head down to hers and she would hold her breath waiting for it. He wouldn't touch her, except for that one gentle contact and he would draw back and glance away with that awkward grace of his and back to her and smile like every wish he'd ever had was granted. And she would smile and wonder if he would look that way every time he kissed her.

She's afraid that if Henry ever kissed her like that, that deep inside she would be disappointed.

In her dreams, he has a hand up her blouse when he kisses her, a thumb caressing the underside of her breast, barely brushing against it in a lazy motion that leaves her breathless. She's backed up against a wall, one hand against his chest and one hand splayed against the wall, undecided whether or not to push him away, when all she can think is that Walter never kissed her like this. In her dreams, Henry kisses her like he has all the time in the world to memorize how she tastes. When he draws back she can see so much in his eyes, need and adoration, and all of it just frightens her because he's all she wants.

Sometimes she pushes him away, sometimes she doesn't. When she doesn't, he kisses her again, with more hunger and more possessively and they don't stop.

This is why she stammers in his presence, why whatever composure she has seems to vanish faster than swag, why she keeps telling herself Walter is safer.

Safer. But, Henry could be safe, too. If safety fulfilled all her requirements. She can't help but compare them and Walter always comes up lacking and she hasn't been able to figure out why. Walter _loves_ her, this she's sure of. She can't figure out why that's not enough. So she tries weighing Walter and Henry against the only other man in her choices, although it's completely unfair of her. They are so different, all of them.

If this were a fairy tale, she knows who would sweep her off her feet. Convention says Daniel's her prince. However, unlike the princes in fairy tales, true and faithful to the end, pure as gold, this prince is gold-plated. Daniel's well-intentioned, honorable, but imperfect. She doesn't know if she would have the patience to wait for those imperfections to be worn away with time. He wouldn't care about what the world thought of them, but she knows she would and she couldn't live with that. She's learned her lesson about appearances well by now.

Betty doesn't know what she needs, but she does know what she wants, and she knows that sometimes the two aren't mutually exclusive. She's also well-aware that getting what you want can be a terrible mistake. She wants Henry, but maybe, Henry's not what she needs. So she goes round and round.

He's a nice guy, she tells herself and she really should stop dwelling on it, but she can't and she knows why. She just can't accept it.

Betty has three eligible men in her life: Daniel, Henry, and Walter.

She only dreams about one of them.

And...dreams don't lie, or so she's heard.

End.


End file.
